Rise of Drones in U.S. Drives Efforts to Limit Police Use

The Federal Aviation Administration has received about 80 requests, including some from police and other government agencies, for clearance to fly drones, according to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which seeks to limit their use for police surveillance.

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In recent years, protesters have come face to face with police forces that are increasingly well-equipped with battlefield surveillance technologies. That’s because U.S. police are getting more and more equipment from the U.S. military—including sophisticated surveillance equipment. The trend has led to disturbing scenes like those from 2014 protests...

Biometric screening, surveillance drones, social media snooping, license plate readers—all this and more would be required by new federal legislation to expand high-tech spying on U.S. citizens and immigrants alike at and near the U.S. border.
Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) introduced “the SECURE Act” (S. 2192) on December 5...

Step onto any city street and you may find yourself subject to numerous forms of police surveillance—many imperceptible to the human eye.A cruiser equipped with automated license plate readers (also known as ALPRs) may have just logged where you parked your car. A cell-site simulator may be capturing your cell-phone...

UPDATE: EFF also opposes H.R. 3548. Like S. 1757, it would expand border surveillance with biometric, drone, and ALPR technologies. The bill, styled the Border Security for America Act, was introduced by Rep. McCaul in July.
EFF opposes a new federal bill that would dramatically expand dragnet biometric...

This summer, two of the west coast’s largest metropolitan areas—Seattle and Los Angeles County—took major steps to curtail secret, unilateral surveillance by local police. These victories for transparency and community control lend momentum toward sweeping reforms pending across California, as well as congressional efforts to curtail unchecked surveillance by federal...

BART is considering a policy that would balance security interests and privacy rights. The BART Surveillance & Community Safety Act would require its Board of Directors to grant specific approval for each new surveillance device after listening to public comment and conduct yearly reviews of their use. Misuse, or ineffectiveness...

EFF urged the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) Board to adopt a new law that would ensure community control of whether to adopt new surveillance technologies.
All too often, police executives unilaterally decide to adopt powerful new spying tools that invade our privacy, chill our free speech, and unfairly...

Equipped with high-tech cameras and radar, and capable of staying in the air much longer than planes flown by humans, drones fill a critical gap in border security, officials with Homeland Security say. The drones are also used to assist state and local law enforcement agencies for operations that may...

When asked, groups that pushed for the passage of the Santa Clara ordinance emphatically denied that their efforts actually served to facilitate the purchase of surveillance technologies. Shahid Buttar is the director of grassroots advocacy at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit dedicating to defending civil liberties in the digital...

When EFF analyzes state legislation regulating the operation of drones, we look for a few elements. How will the bill affect law enforcement use of drones? And how will the bill impact private drone use, whether for recreation, journalism, or innovative new business applications? Will the legislation protect the...